So, you like Star Trek the Original Series (TOS) huh? Aaaand you’ve also got a secret hankering to obsessively collect cats like they were clawed Pokémon? Well, fear not, we have found the perfect book for you! Filling a niche that possibly didn’t need filling is Jenny Parks’s Star Trek Cats. That’s right, the TOS crew are all here in feline form. First Officer Spock is an aloof, oriental shorthair, Dr. Bones is a blue eyed grey and white, Ensign Chekov is Russian Blue, Lt. Nyota Uhura a Havana brown-esque sharp talker, Lt. Sulu is sleek black and amber eyed, and Scotty is a scrappy, tabby Scottish Fold cat (of course). The main dude, Captain James T. Kirk, is imagined as a suave ginger tom with piercing green eyes. As Parks is a scientific artist by training, the choice of breeds is kind of spot on; you can imagine Kirk as the sort of swaggering tomcat who escaped the vet’s neutering table.

Those who have cats will recognise some of their idiosyncrasies, Sulu’s “reaching for the lasers” paws in the teleporter is quite charming (Beam me up! No, beam me down! No, beam me back up again!). In fact, even if you’re thinking the phrase “shameless cash-in”, the whole thing is so lovingly realised by Parks that you can’t really hate it. Jenny Parks has previous experience of drawing cats as pop culture characters; she is influenced by science fiction and has drawn for Marvel. It would be nice to see more of her playful creations published as books as well as these Star Trek creations.

Throughout the sixty-four pages of this small hardback, moments from episodes across TOS series are re-lived by these furry bundles of joy from “Space: the final frontier” to “Live long and prosper”. And, of course, there are cute, purring Tribbles.

So yes, at first this seems like one of those “just because you can doesn’t mean you should” books, but hey, why not?! It’s more than a little bit bonkers but it’s a book that’s full of good felines (sorry, not sorry). Also, is it too early to state that this book is possibly the quintessential Christmas stocking filler for the lover of Star Trek AND cats in your family?

STAR TREK CATS / AUTHOR: JENNY PARKS / PUBLISHER: CHRONICLE BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW